courvscoxWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“cour” and “cox” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#669
“cour” frequency rank
#19,493
“cox” frequency rank
20162
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cour cox
Definition Espace découvert qui dépend d’une maison, d’un hôtel, etc., et qui est entouré de murs ou de bâtiments. Variété de pommier.

Where the eye mixes cour and cox

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cour
3 ch
cox

Look-alike desk: cour vs cox

A purely visual mix-up. cour (\kuʁ\) and cox (\koks\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20162, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cour is recorded at frequency rank #669, classified as anoun, pronounced \kuʁ\. cox is at rank #19,493, tagged as anoun, pronounced \koks\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 20162, this pair ranks #369,660 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cour vs cox

Shared letters: co. Private to "cour": ru. Private to "cox": x.

"cour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "cox" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courccour · coru · courr · cuor · ocur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cour" and "cox" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kuʁ\ versus \koks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cour" vs "cox" - which ranks higher?
"cour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #669 in our French list, against #19,493 for "cox". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cour" and "cox" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cox" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #369,660 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cour" and "cox" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cox". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #369,660 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list